So we have a diligent, dedicated kid saying (and really putting herself out there!) that she didn’t get a fair shake from the counselor. We know she’s not just trashing everyone, and we know she’s not an entitled brat, because she starts the speech thanking a big group of teachers and staff, by name.
We also have the crowd of students cheering her for calling it out. That’s another bit of evidence in favor of the speaker.
I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who loses a child. If it was getting in the way of doing the job, the counselor needed to get help from the school and/or district, not let it ripple out in a wave of damage to the students at the school and their families.
See, right there, that’s what I’m talking about. We know no such thing about this young woman, nor do we know anything about this counselor, but we’re awfully quick to give attagirls to someone going pretty hard at a public school counselor who may or may not have it coming.
Do you know that this counselor didn’t spend less time with the valedictorian than she would have liked because she was spending more time with other students with more pressing needs? I don’t. Do you know whether the valedictorian felt more entitled to the counselor’s time because she was the school’s top student and expected the lower achieving students to get in the back of the line? I don’t. And, to be fair, do I know whether the counselor is a jerk who is no good at her job? I don’t.
These assumptions are what I have a problem with. I’d have thought that in 2019 we’d have learned to reserve a bit of judgment on the underlying righteousness of viral videos, but there’s a lot of folks eager to pile on to a public school counselor they know nothing about
What wave of damage are you referring to, specifically? The speech called her out for not helping her, not for anything else.
We have some evidence in favor of the valedictorian’s side of things. We have zero evidence of the counselor’s. I’m just working with the evidence we have. If more evidence comes out that the speaker was in the wrong, I’ll adjust. In the mean time, assuming that the speaker is in the wrong is borderline concern driving trollies ("Won’t anyone think about the counselor!?!)
Not cool. That was a direct response to your hypothetical. If you’re going to hypothesize, don’t chastise me for following along.
That’s the heart of this, I guess. The target of her ire is an actual human being doing a difficult and often under compensated job, and may or may not have had it coming. I don’t consider empathy for her and what this may have meant to her to be as absurd as you may suppose.
But I also recognize this is going in circles at this point and getting testy, so I’ll give you the last word and leave it at that. Take care.
Personally, knowing the territory in SD County, San Ysidro is at the bottom of the barrel, socioeconomically. The main entitlement if at all, exists between these kids and their peers living just over the border.
If you don’t want a student burn your ass on a public forum, maybe you should be more concerned with the behavior of your employees.
…And ensure that your employees are given adequate time and resources to do their jobs effectively.
My public school counterparts each see over 600 students on a weekly basis. Exactly how much individual attention can each one of those kids reasonably expect? How many people commenting on this thread could even remember 600 kids’ names?
